Slovak Baptisms Part 2

This is the second installment of my three-part series about how to read Slovak Baptisms. The baptism below was created in 1777 in Turčiansky Michal. Although this baptism is simpler it still contains all the necessary information you will need. I will use the same format as my prior post, you can see below the image there is a full translation. Also like before, below my translation I will have a full explanation of the five sections that make this baptism. A lot of this article is a review from part one, but this baptism does have some variations.

Headings in Latin	Headings in English	Translation and Transcription of record
Baptisans	Priest	Parochus (Parish Priest) Michaél Istvánfȳ
Baptisatus	Baptized	Catharina
Parentes	Parents	Andreas & Susanna Lovasik acatholici (Non-catholic)
Patrinus et Matrina	Godfather and Godmother	Michaél Gurkovic & Susanna Ludik
Die, mense, et anno	Day, month and year	Die (Day) 29 Junii (June) 1777

Preist – Baptisans

As we saw in the first baptism Baptisan means priest. One variation this parish has is that the Baptisan column is first instead of last or near the end. This record also uses the Latin word Parochus which means priest, some parishes will say Parochus before the priest’s name others will only write the priest’s name down. In this baptism, the Parochus or priest was Micheal Istvanfy. (Just a little side note Istvan is Steven in Maygar)

Baptized – Baptisatus

The secound column is the name of the child baptized. This is another new word but it’s quite uncommon so always remember Nomen means name. In this case, the name of the child is Catharina.

Parents – Parentes

This is the parent’s column. Going back to my 1st article we know that parentum means parents and Parentes also means parents, both can be found in baptismal records and they are used interchangeably. In the baptism of Catharina, the parents are listed as Andreas and Susanna Lovasik and they were both Catholics.

Godfather and Godmother – Patrinus et Matrina

The next section is the Godparents. Prevously and most commonly the word patrinorum was used for godparent but in this record the words Patrinus et Matrina were used instead. Patrinus et Matrina means in English Godfather and Godmother. In the case of Catharina the godparents were listed as Michael Purkovic and Susanna Ludik.

Day, month and year – Die, mense, et anno

Dates are vital information and this column lists that information. Another odd variation this record format has is that the date is the last column, in a normal baptism the date column is one of the first. Catharina was born on the 29th of June 1777.

Baptisms can be quite varied in information provide as we saw above there was no birthplace list nor birthdate or death date. But there are a few tricks we can use to estimate when and where a child was born. Considering Catholics usually baptized their children right after birth is can be assumed that Catharina was likely born in late June 1777 and likely near or in Turčiansky Michal, Slovakia.